1957 · Album
That’s Him!
Recorded 1957 · Riverside Records · Produced by Orrin Keepnews
Abbey Lincoln Steps Into Herself
This is Lincoln before the protests, already sounding like she had something to prove.
By 1957, Abbey Lincoln had been working clubs and cutting records for a couple of years, but That's Him! (1957) is where she starts to sound like herself rather than a capable interpreter doing her best Billie Holiday impression. The album is a standards date with a small group, and it benefits enormously from the rhythm section and horn players around her — including Sonny Rollins, who appears on a handful of tracks and brings a looseness that keeps the record from feeling too careful. His solo on "Moonlight in Vermont" is worth the price of admission on its own. The production is clean and forward, putting Lincoln's voice right in the room with you.
What makes this record interesting is how Lincoln handles the material. She is not belting or over-emoting. She sits inside the songs — "Tender as a Rose," "I Must Have That Man" — and lets the words do the work. There is a directness to her phrasing that would become more politically charged once she moved into civil rights activism in the 1960s, but here it reads as confidence. She sounds like a woman who has made up her mind about a song and is not interested in reconsidering.
This is a strong debut-era record, not a lost classic that needs rescuing. If you know Lincoln mainly from her later, more politically charged work or her collaborations with Max Roach, this is a useful earlier chapter. It shows where she came from — a skilled vocalist working in a well-established idiom — before she pushed that idiom somewhere harder. Start with "Strong Man" if you want to hear what she was already capable of when the room was listening.
Who's playing
Paul Chambersdouble bass
Wynton Kellypiano
Sonny Rollinstenor saxophone
Kenny Dorhamtrumpet
Max Roachdrums
Where next?
More by Abbey Lincoln
All 26 albums →
The musicians on this record
Way Out West 1957
Sonny Rollins
plays tenor saxophone here
plays tenor saxophone here
Kelly Blue 1959
Wynton Kelly
plays piano here
plays piano here
Quiet Kenny 1960
Kenny Dorham
plays trumpet here
plays trumpet here
Deeds, Not Words 1958
Max Roach
plays drums (drum set) here
plays drums (drum set) here
